Shopping Day
by The Imaginiteer
Summary: Michael Weston is spending a day at the mall for some quality retail therapy! not really What could possibly go wrong?
1. The Client

My name is Michael Weston. I used to be a spy…

* * *

I hate shopping malls. They're a tactical nightmare. There's no place to hide, there are too many entry and exit points to cover them all, and there's just too many people. Malls are not safe. But unfortunately, when you're an ex-spy, you have to go shopping to please the few people who will still talk to you. Just sending money doesn't work anymore when you're constantly pulling in favors. Anyway, I was forced to go to a mall last week and here's what happened. Because, of course, it was no ordinary trip to a mall. But I bet you could have guessed that.

-"It's 100 degrees in Miami, and, not only do I have to spend the day with 1500 of my closest, sweatiest friends, but I also am wearing a new suit."

-"Mikey, you have heard of Amazon right?" said Sam.

-"Yeah, well, shipping is expensive. I don't have an address, and mom's birthday is tomorrow. By the way, thanks for the advanced notice that you were throwing her a surprise party."

-"Yeah well…look to the future."

_As they walk into the mall…_

-"So, what do you think I should get her?"

-"I don't know Mike, I'm throwing her a party to get out of that whole gift thing."

-"Well, lets go… umm… this way I guess"

* * *

-"Hello, are you Michael Weston?"

-"Who's asking?"

-"My name is Stephan. I was instructed to give you this" (handing him an envelope)

_Michael holds up his hands refusing to take the envelope._

-"If you know who I am, then you know that I don't take envelopes from strangers. It's a force of habit; I blame my mother.

-"Before you walk away, just know that this envelope contains…a present. From an old friend."

-"Thanks anyway"

-"From Carl Johnson"

_Michael stops in his tracks and seems a bit stunned_

-"Carl, we had a deal. You're not supposed to be alive, remember?"

-"Mike, I'm in trouble, and if it makes a difference, you and this entire mall are in trouble."  
-"Carl, I don't have time for this. What are you playing at?"

-"I didn't mean for it to go so far Mike. I was working with some…well you know, but anyway they decided they didn't want to work with me anymore. But they followed me to make sure I didn't work with anyone else either."

-"Mikey, who is this guy?" said Sam

-"In a minute Sam. Carl, please tell me something different than what I think you're telling me."

-"You remember our time back in Russia Mike?"  
-"Ugh"

-"Yeah, well that times a hundred."  
-"How much time?"

-"It's going down tomorrow but that's all I know"

-"Thanks again for the heads up!"

-"What?"

-"Never mind, just go…somewhere else and I'll be in touch. And gimme that envelope."

-"Good to see you Mike, and well thanks."

* * *

-"Mike who was that, and why am I getting that feeling like it's been three days since I've had a tequila?"

-"Sam, I've got some good news and some bad news. Good news is I'm gonna have plenty of time to pick up a present for my mom, bad news is this mall is going to be…well robbed by Soviet extremist militants who really don't like me much."

-"Mike please tell me something other than that…anything else!"

-"They are going to blow it up when they're done"

-"And I thought this was going to be just another lazy afternoon!"

-"Yeah, well on the plus side…well we'd better get to work."


	2. Preparation

Chapter 2: Preparation

Preparing for a big operation is possibly one of the most fun parts about being a spy. It's almost like you're a little kid and your imagination is running wild. Boring rooms become exotic locations, and the simple tools around you become advanced technology. Preparing for a big op is great because usually you don't know what you're going to need to do, so you get to think about all the possibilities. Also, you tend to over pack because you don't know what you're going to need but you know you're going to need it. Duct tape and C-4 are good places to start. Depending on the location, guns, but when you're trying to protect a shopping mall full of people, guns tend to get in the way. C-4 might as well, but you can never have too much C-4 (so says Fiona).

I love backpacks because they have lots of small compartments, and you never have to explain a backpack. A duffle bag leads to questions about "hidden bodies" or bombs or things like that. And more often than not they are rightly asked questions, but to a spy that's just another very uncomfortable situation. But backpacks are awesome because they are versatile. Versatility is key to a spy. Especially on a job like this. So here's what a very long night looks like for Michael Weston.

We figured that there were at least a hundred and fifty stores in that mall, and only about seventy-five or so that would be worth steeling credit card information from. We assumed that was what they were after because there's nothing that valuable to Soviets other than a months worth of credit card files in Miami's most popular mall. So how to stop them? The million dollar question. And I didn't have half a clue. Nothing like this had ever come up. It's like a combined bank robbery, but nobody knows they're being robbed. And knowing Soviet militants, making a scene would not save lives. Discretion is a spy's best friend, but only when the spy is the one trying not to get caught. Trying to expose someone else, however, is much more difficult. The plan was to make the Soviets think that someone bigger than them was watching. A three man team is really all you need to make a splash, so that wasn't a problem. The biggest issue would be to leave clues to show that "we" were watching, but if they were too obvious it would look like a set up. Which it was.


	3. C4 and Duct Tape

The two most important items in a spy's arsenal are of course, duct tape and c-4. Duct tape is possibly the greatest invention on earth, and c-4 makes a big boom. If there's one thing I like more than yogurt, it's a big boom.

Many spies bring a duffle bag filled with all kinds of crazy weapons and ammunition, but they forget the important things like food and toilet paper. Once you've spent a few weeks in Serbia, you'll understand what I mean. Also, always pack light. This is the hardest part about being a spy because it means that to a certain extent you have to forget the Boy Scout motto and bring just the barest necessities. That's why duct tape and c-4 are a safe bet. I'd also recommend enough money so that if you get mugged the mugger is happy, but not so much that the check out girl wants to see what kind of car you drive. Obviously a gun would be what most people would expect to see on a spy going on a mission, but guns are more tricky, even more so than c-4. With c-4 you can make it look like an accident, and you can use enough so that people don't get hurt unnecessarily, but you make an impression. Guns are intentional. If you shoot a gun at someone, they are going to notice, and everyone around them is going to notice. You can't pretend it was an accident or deny it as being a faulty gas line. You shot someone and that's all there is to it. Oh and a Swiss Army Knife. This one is a bit cliché, but the Swiss made a damn good knife, and you know what they say about the Swiss.

I don't have a landline phone. I know that may seem hard to believe, but land lines are pretty much useless anyway. Cellphones on the other hand are quite a lovely invention. The perfect tracker, listening device, mini bomb, flashlight, portable gaming device, GPS, camera, hiding place, detonator, recorder, et cetera. I always pack a few just in case. Sam prefers to pack a lot of beer, but alcohol is not a spy's best friend. Before Miami, I'd never met a spy who actually drank the liquor he was given. There are several tricks to fake drink that come in handy, but we'll talk about that later.

We had a long night to say the least. Sam and Fiona kept arguing, and my mom wouldn't stop calling. Nate came into town for her birthday, and wanted me there, but obviously I had a prior commitment. Sam managed to get the schematics for the mall from a buddy of his, but they were nearly impossible to plan with. There were at least a hundred stores, huge open halls and of course Miami middle class was pretty easy to blend into on a hot summer Saturday. The plan was to convince "them" that they were ripping off someone bigger then "them", someone stronger. A three man team is surprisingly effective for this effect. We'd bring a truck towards the loading docks with extra equipment and a surveillance center. Get eyes in the bank and other high roller stores and set up distractions throughout the mall. I brought a few extra surprises with me, because at this point all we had was surprise, and we were going to get every last drop of it that we could.


	4. Long Shot

As the sun rose over Miami, Sam and Fiona were just waking up, I had stayed up running a few last minute errands throughout the mall to finish preparing. I got back to the truck and Sam jolted awake.

"Miley Cyrus!" he shouted, waking Fiona, who had fallen asleep on his shoulder. She cried out and punched him rather aggressively for such a small woman.

"Ouch! Mike she hit me!"

"Tattletale" she quipped, taking my coffee and sipping generously. Just to be clear, that was my coffee, not hers. Mine. Anyway...

Once the team was all set to go, we ditched the truck and entered the mall, taking up our first positions. Sam, or Chuck Finely rather, was going to be waiting at the front of the mall, Fiona would be the voice and eyes of our mission, operating from our "control room" in the Bloomingdales employee break room, and I would be the man in the shadows. My favorite job. That one time I got to be the devil was pretty fun too, but thats another story.

Sam was standing in a very nice suit he "borrowed" from the Tux rental shop, looking as James Bond-y as he could manage, Ray Bans and all. At nine o'clock exactly, the mission would begin, when our guests would arrive. And they did, and we realized just what we had gotten ourselves into.

Sam's display of badassery was slightly lessened by the fact that at 9:01, fifty men with an assortment of long and short range guns, ammunitions, suitcases, presumably filled with explosives, headsets, and...of course, Ray Bans. We were out of our league here, and I've infiltrated foreign embassies with toothpicks and hand sanitizer, so thats saying a lot.

The man in charge walked up to Sam and spoke in a flawless midwestern accent, which was surprising considering these were supposed to be Soviet Extremists.

"Hello Mister Weston, we worried you might try and stop us", and with a flourish held a gun to Sam's head.

"I'm afraid you have me mistaken with someone else, I'm Charles Finley", Sam said with a cautious smile. "That being said, I think you still should be worried about me trying to stop you, you see, my employer has a vested interest in you not robbing this mall".

"Well perhaps your employer should have sent someone less...pudgy, to address me." the man said.

"Pudgy? Nobody calls Charles "Chuck Chuck" Finley III esq. pudgy!" Sam exclaimed.

"Sam what are you doing?" I said, whispering into the earwig Sam was wearing.

"Uh oh buddy, now you've made my employer angry, so you'd better just back up and leave unless you want things to end poorly for you and your little militia here" Sam said, delicately taking off his sun glasses for what he could only assume would add dramatic effect.

"Just get out of my way pudge" said the man, again raising his gun, when suddenly, he was no longer holding his gun, and his hand was dripping red. From somewhere far away on the other side of the mall, I sniped the gun out of his hand, accidentally nicking a finger. Not that he'd miss it too badly. Unless he likes his fingers.

Regardless, in that split second, fifty guns were suddenly pointing all around the mall desperately searching for the hidden hunter, when one of them dropped to the floor, then on the other side of their line, another fell, both incapacitated by some sort of dart. A few seconds later, half of them were on the floor, out cold, the rest scrambling around the mall, and Sam running for cover towards the movie theater. It was utter chaos, and it was go time.

The man with one less finger was screaming, his native accent returned to him, and I can attest to the proficiency of his slang vocabulary.

Oh right, I almost forgot. No I'm not that good of a shot to take out half a small army in twenty seconds. You know those t-shirt cannons they have at concerts? Well they're essentially just potato cannons, or more accurately, low powered air cannons. Which is great because they're like shot guns in that they can send a spray of something like, oh I don't know, a tranquilizer dart, towards a general crowd with very little accuracy. But when you're trying to clear a crowd, or in this case an army, accuracy is not the concern.

So as Sam was running comically through the mall, and I was carefully packing up my sniper riffle, Fiona activated stage two of our plan.

"Good morning shoppers, please be advised that an extreme weather report has come up for our area. Periodic explosions have been reported throughout the mall. Thank you as always for shopping with us, have a great day!" said Fiona in an impressively convincing radio voice.

Just then, there were several flashes of light, puffs of smoke, and shrieks of pain from areas all throughout the scrambling mob of mercenaries.

I was talking about C4 earlier, well I've found out an interesting fact about C4 in my travels. C4 is freaking awesome. Why you ask? Well I'll tell you why. In movies and tv, you always see C4 in bricks, pressed against a support beam, or in a package, with some wires and a cellphone attached to detonate the device. Well as it turns out, thats a waste of C4. Plastic explosives are meant to be extremely stable, easy to work with, and highly explosive when heat, and shock are both applied at the same time. Essentially this means you can light C4 on fire, and nothing will happen, but if you connect it to an 8 volt battery, kaboom.

Now its also interesting, because when you detonate C4, the material is all instantly destroyed, and its not the fiery inferno that causes damage, but the sonic shockwave that emanates from the blast center. Now without being too technical, it means that you can do enough damage to...how do I put this delicately...incapacitate your target, with a sliver of C4 the size of a piece of gum. C4 is also expensive, so I try not to waste it. Anyway, back to the mall.

I've figured out a way to detonate C4 remotely, and while its really not pretty, it does work in a pinch. By placing a dime sized amount of C4 on the ground where people will walk, you pretty much ensure that somebody will step on it, and it will stick to their shoe. Then, you just have to get them to walk on a low current wire, and boom goes the...C4

Now I know what you're thinking, we're not just killing mercenaries left and right, its only enough that the shockwave would knock them off balance, and probably break their ankles. And set their shoes on fire, definitely a lot of burned up boots. Then, they've fallen on a wire net lying on the ground, and essentially tazed themselves. Luckily theres only enough juice in each battery to detonate the C4 and give them a nice sleepy time shock. Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

By this point, there were only a few Russians running around still, and Fiona was at it again mocking them in a highly amusing talk show voice, while same kept saying things like "say hello to my little friend", and other random, but somehow relevant movie references. He and I were walking around zip-tying the hands of the passed out mercs, and taking any of the materials they had we might get to use in the future. Like I said, C4 is expensive. Finally, we made it back to the front of the mall, and were disarming the man who was down a digit, as he continued to curse us off. Turned out these were small time radicals, mostly just crazy and missing the good old days of war and turmoil.

The mall was set to open at 11, and it was almost 9:45, so we figured that would be enough time for the police to call the FBI and round up the rest of their merry band of misfits, and so we headed out into the warm Miami air, ready to go to my mom's birthday party.


End file.
